Back in Greece
by Weezila
Summary: What if one demigod per god was allowed to travel back in time to Anceint Greece, and there was no Mist, and no purpose, no mission, and the Mortals totally freaked meeting their god's kids? Just a thought. MoA ended so depressingly, I thought the demigods could use a little fun, humor, and pampering from thier adoring fans.
1. Where are we again?

**Hello internet, this is just a little fic I had an idea for as we went over the history of theater (Ancient Greek/Rome heavily referenced) in school today (no, no one is singing in this story, I have other Glee-fan fictions allocated for that :P). I just thought it'd be cool to see what would happen if the children of the gods got sent back to a time when mortals believed in the gods and freaked when they met their children (D) **

**Too lazy to come up with a whole back-story and such, so I just set it during the Mark of Athena and made everyone's memories really blurry so they're not focusing on what they **_**should**_** doing (aka, saving the world) and enjoy the time change. **

**Another thing I should mention, is that this is an off-the-cuff story and I truly don't feel like doing the in-depth research to make sure everything coordinates with the books/mythology/what Greece actually looked like. I've never been to Greece, I only have cursory knowledge of what it looks like, and I'm too lazy to change that, so, if things aren't perfectly coherent, to put it nicely, **_**deal**_**. **

**Enjoy. **

**(P.s, my creative engine spans about four or five chapters per story I write and then goes kaput, so if anyone has suggestions or requests on what they want to happen, honestly, I NEED the input.)**

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They were on the Argo II, that was the last thing Percy could remember. Or maybe he was in a cavern with Annabeth… or maybe Blackjack had just knocked him out…? The details were fuzzy, he got glimpses, of the past days, or maybe the future (!?) but all he knew was that he was suddenly standing in the sunlight looking at an equally confused Annabeth.

Great, a confused Annabeth was never a good thing. Then there was no hope for anyone else to figure it out either!

Wait, wasn't Annabeth off on her own quest… or was she about to leave?

Oh gods, who cares?

"Percy?" She blinked. "I thought… I left you, or I was leaving…?"

"Uh…" He said cleverly.

"Dudes, either I'm more out of it than I thought I was, or I'm just _really_ unobservant, cuz' I'd hope I'd notice if someone put me into a dress when I wasn't looking!"

Percy and Annabeth turned to the left, and sure enough, there was Leo, looking mildly alarmed at the white tunic-dress thing he was wearing with an orangey-brown linen shall thing wrapped over his shoulder, the way the Ancient Greeks used to dress. **(A/N, just Google images Ancient Greek clothes for men and you get the jist). **They glanced down and realized they were dressed similarly, in the old-fashioned clothes, Percy in white and sea-green robes, Annabeth looking shockingly pretty in the purple and white Greek dress, her hair done up in golden ringlets.

"Percy?"

"_Grover?_" Percy gaped at the Satyr—also in a tunic/shall/dress thing, only in tan and moss green, and a lot longer so to cover his hooved feet— who was standing to his left, confused as well. "What're you doing in Rome?"

"Not Rome, Greece." Came Piper's voice. Percy shook off his confusion and took in the whole scene before him.

Thirteen demigods stood in an open courtyard, all dressed in the old Greek clothes. Usually Percy wouldn't think much of it, seeing how the Romans wore togas to their senate meetings and he'd seen kids around camp _sometimes_ wear these things for special things (or jokes, whatever) so this style wasn't terribly out of place in his life, except for the fact that these were _real._ Like, real linen, real hand stitching, "_real_" real. Not the survived-three-thousand-years-and-is-still-old-but-modernized like Charon being the same old Charon except for his new designer Italian suits, and all the other examples Percy had seen over the years. These were real, as in…

"This is like, _Greece_. Not like, our Greece, but _actual_ Greece, isn't it?" Leo was also looking around, and picking at his garments in curiosity.

"Like, we've gone back in time?" Hazel blinked.

"Wicked!" The Stoll twins chorus.

Wait-the _Stolls?!_

Percy did a quick headcount. There were the people he'd been sure (or almost sure, he wasn't sure) he'd just been with, like Annabeth, Leo, Hazel, Frank, Jason, and Piper, but also people he hadn't seen in months and were the last people to be going on a quest, like Grover, Thalia, Nico, the Stolls, and Rachel.

_Rachel?!_

"Aside from that Labyrinth thing, I've never been a part of and nor will I ever go on a quest, and in all honesty, I was pretty fine with that." Rachel spoke up, causing people to look at her with equal confusion at her being there. "So _please_, someone tell me I didn't somehow get caught up in this battle you guys are fighting…" They all looked at her blankly. None could remember what they'd been doing. She sighed.

Percy looked at Nico in his black robes, thinking hard. There was something he was supposed to remember about his cousin, like it was on the tip of his tongue but it just wouldn't come. The memory gap reminded him of when Hera took his memories… well, now it was more like she'd taken them, put them in a blender for an hour, then poured them back into his head. He had them, he just couldn't make any sense of it.

"Aren't you supposed to be dying?" He blurted out, and Nico frowned.

"I certainly hope not." He shrugged, looking paler than Percy remembered him, his hair looking washed out and slightly gray (what was with that?!) but otherwise just as confused as everyone else.

"It looks like Ancient Greece… or, the pictures I guess." Thalia—her pendant still in place on her forehead, her dress a glowing silver and black—had drifted to stand beside Jason (light sky blue and white robes), who was looking worried. Percy could see why as he glanced about the low white stone buildings with red roofs and the sun rising low in the east, looking up and down the street at closed shop fronts and fountains trickling peacefully every so often down the road, the smell of sea air and breakfast fire smoke on the morning breeze. The little residential portion of what seemed to be a larger city that they'd landed in was very beautiful, very peaceful.

And one day the Romans would sweep through and destroy it all.

Blah, not getting into that argument now, but there was a big difference from arguing it with three thousand years of hindsight, and standing in the middle of a harmless town knowing it would be burned to the ground one day. Frank and Hazel looked a bit depressed as well, but not nearly as… well, _guilty_ almost as Jason did.

"Oh my gods…" Annabeth gasped. "_Look!"_ She pointed up above the rooftops to their left, where a great hill rose up, the city seemingly to have been built on top of it, and at the crest, stood the one and only Parthenon. Not the one in Nashville, or the crumbling one in modern day, but the real, honest to gods Parthenon. Its white stone gleamed in the morning sun, perfectly whole and eloquently decorated: a true wonder of the world as it stood proudly in its prime.

Percy did not need to be told twice that he and Annabeth (Annabeth really, but he suspected he'd be dragged along) would be stopping there before they figured out a way to get home.

"Ancient Greece…right…" Leo seemed to be having an aneurism equal to Annabeth's as he stared up at the beauty. "…holy _heck_, how would they even _build_ that thing!? I mean, the logistics of B.C tech is just plain cruddy, and even if you consider-"

"The Parthenon- oh my gods, this is unreal, this is _wonderful! _I mean to _actually_ see-!"

"I suppose if they used a rigging system, maybe giant levers, that is possible, and with a hydraulic—ah, no, that was definitely a Roman thing, they couldn't've known-"

"But they were genius's at creative and in-depth studies of architectural support beams and-!"

"-and then there was the war with the southern raiders that took their main source of engineering, but if you take into account all the _mountains _they have to level to build just _one-!" _

"- supported it though a display of aesthetic and functional methods that even thousands of years from now-!"

"-I mean, aliens would've had to help them, right? Or the gods, that's more realistic, I just don't see mortals coming up with the power, much less the resources; it _had_ to be dad, or maybe even Athena seeing as it was her shrine later on-"

"You guys are talking to each other, but you have _no clue_ what either one said, do you!?" Percy exploded. Everyone else was watching this display with a kind of horrible fascination.

Annabeth and Leo just blinked, looking away from the building in the distance and stared at Percy.

"What?" They asked simultaneously.

Percy scoffed. "Geeks, both of you." He tossed his hands up and walked away. The two remaining looked at each other as if just realizing each other were there.

"Children!" Everyone turned to see a man in a dark green tunic coming out of a building, a large basket gripped beneath his arm. "Children! What are you doing up at this hour? The sun has not yet risen, if not fishermen, why are you wandering the streets?" He approached them, but not in a way that had the demigods reaching for their weapons (which they then belatedly realized they didn't have) but with actual concern of a friendly neighbor.

"Oh, uh…" Percy scratched the back of his head. The man's eyes seemed to drift among them, becoming more and more confused and wary the more he saw.

"Honoring the gods, sir." Annabeth piped up, saving them from their alarmed dazes. "We thought we'd join in prayer as the sun went up, honoring Apollo."

Rachel gasped and a clutched at her wrist. Travis and Frank stood closest and gripped her shoulders in worry, but she just smiled and waved them all off, still clutching her wrist.

The man's eyes were on Rachel, and hesitated, but slowly nodded. "Very well then… just… perhaps move away from the homes? That lovely fountain of Apollo and Artemis down a ways?"

Annabeth ignored Thalia as she too, gasped, and smiled warmly at the man. "Of course! Our mistake! Thank you sir, have a nice day." That man still seemed disturbed by them, but eventually moved away to walk down the street. Annabeth motioned and they moved together as a group until they came to another courtyard, this one with a medium sized fountain in the middle. Artemis and Apollo were indeed depicted in the designs on the sides, as could be told by the sun and deer and bow-and-arrow symbols, but the actual characters looked nothing like the god and goddess Percy'd met.

"What was that about?" Frank asked Rachel, whose eyes were wide.

"_Look…"_ She hissed, releasing her wrist revealing a faintly golden-yellow design etched there. It was a intricate sun with a lyre in the middle.

"Uh, why has Apollo branded you?" Leo asked over her shoulder looking down at it.

Rachel rolled her eyes as Thalia stepped forward. "But look, the same thing happened to me, only with Artemis." Sure enough, the inside of her forearm had been branded with a silver tattoo of a crescent moon and a drawn bow-and-arrow.

There was a silence as everyone exchanged loaded looks.

"They're your patrons." Nico finally said and all eyes fell on him. He shifted uncomfortably. "Well… Rachael's the Oracle, that falls into Apollo's jurisdiction, and Thalia's a Hunter of Artemis. We obviously ended up back in time, that _had_ to require some amount of power to do, perhaps our patrons sent us back…?"

Everyone looked at each other.

"There are thirteen of us." Frank realized. "Twelve Olympians and Pluto- er, Hades. one kid for each major god."

"Um, hello?" Connor raised his hand. "Travis and I have the same patron, what does that mean?"

"And Nico and I do too." Hazel frowned.

"Yeah, and my patron is Juno, or Hera, whatever, not Jupiter or, uh Zeus." Jason agreed. "Who did Zeus send?"

Annabeth frowned. "Without you or Thalia, Zeus has no one in our time. He must have just allowed Hermes to send two. He's plenty represented anyway with you two here."

The Stolls grinned at each other. "Sweet!"

"Maybe Persephone gave one of you to Demeter just to bug Hades," Percy teased innocently, and Nico face palmed.

"Stupid, freak-farmer, mad woman… freakin' daisy…" Percy just laughed at him as he muttered violently under his breath.

"I'm not a demigod, I'm just a satyr!" Grover cried. "There has to be a mistake…"

"Yeah, and I'm mortal, surely I don't count? There's not much I could do on a quest... hey, I wonder if Mr. D sent you, isn't he in charge of the Satyrs?" Rachel wondered aloud and everyone laughed at Grover's deep discomfort and violent blush at that idea.

"Yeah, like he would send his own son on a quest," Travis rolled his eyes.

"I just want to know why they would need to be represented?" Piper wondered. "The people of this age know and worship the gods, why would they need to send us back?"

"I don't know, but uh, guys… we're getting some funny looks." Grover muttered. It was true, people were starting to come out of buildings as everyone woke up and began to go about their daily lives and were shooting odd glances at the group of teens around the fountain.

"We need to figure out exactly what happened and why we're here," Annabeth said logically, but in a lower voice as more and more people started to give them funny looks.

"Geeze, it's like we have two heads or somthing," Leo frowned, looking disapprovingly at the people passing by giving that were them the evil eye.

"Dude, we're in Ancient Greece, I'm sure none of them have ever seen a Hispanic before," Travis snickered, and then both brothers burst into laughter at Leo's face.

"Well, that means Hazel, Frank, Piper, and I stick out like sore thumbs." Leo pouted, and Frank shifted self-consciousnessly beside him. The girls just rolled their eyes.

"Focus!" Annabeth cried, getting their attention again. "I think we should give offerings, like we do at camp before dinner, only, uh…"

"Use the fountain," Percy supplied and she nodded.

"Yes, exactly. We figured out Thalia and Rachel's patron by simply saying their names, if we give offering, maybe we'll catch their full attention, maybe get some help in figuring out what's going on."

"Catch the attention of _this_ time's gods? Uh, is that safe?" Frank muttered.

"Yeah, things are different here, what if demigods aren't treated the same?" Grover fretted. "What if we make them angry? What if-?"

"Geeze, you _really_ need to loosen up." Connor laughed.

"He's got a point," Jason defended the Satyr. "The Romans don't even exist yet, what's going to happen when Frank, Hazel, or I go offering to our parents as their kids, and they don't recognize us?"

"Well, there's one way to find out!" Percy said cheerfully, clapping his hands together and slipping out a golden drachma from a pocket in his robes. Before they could discuss it more, he flipped it off his thumb and it landed in the fountain with a *_plunk!*. _

"Where's you get that?" Leo asked.

Percy shrugged. "Came with the clothes." Then to the water he said calmly,"Poseidon, my father, accept my offering." The water glowed bright green. "Ow!" Percy jumped as he gripped his wrist, feeling a searing, white-hot pain shoot through his arm. It was like a flash, and then it was gone, and when he looked down again, there was an emerald green trident imprinted on his skin. (**A/N, opposite arm from SPQR tattoo, same with all Romans, who get Greek symbols of their parents)**

Annabeth caught on and tossed a coin in. "Athena, my mother, accept my offering." The water shot little beams of gray/silver light and Annabeth—expecting it by now—simply looked down as the image of an owl clutching and olive branch was burned into her inner forearm.

The others exchanged looks and slipped coins out of their pockets as well. For the most part, it went as expected: Frank—Ares, Piper—Aphrodite, Leo—Hephaestus, Rachel—Apollo, Thalia—Artemis, the Stolls—Hermes, Jason—Hera, and then things got weird. Or funny.

"Uh… Dionysus, patron of Satyrs, accept my offering." Grover said, his voice wavering in fear. The fountain glowed purple and he leapt a good four feet in their air (no exaggeration, goat feet can _jump_) as the image of a grape bunch appeared on his wrist. "If I have to go back to our time with this, I'll _never_ live it down…" He sighed sadly, and Percy clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically.

"Hades, my father, accept my offering." Hazel said calmly, tossing in her coin.

Nothing happened.

"Uh… re-do?" Leo asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Ok, this isn't funny." She frowned, drawing out another coin hesitantly. "Should I try Pluto?"

"No, I don't think so, because Frank was accepted by Ares, and Jason by Hera, not Mars or Juno. Try Demeter." Nico suggested and she sighed heavily.

"Ok… Demeter, goddess of the fields, my patron (?), accept my offering." This time, the water was filled with a tan/golden light. Hazel pinched the bridge of her nose and bit her lips.

"Oh gods, your dad sold you out to that mad-lady!" Connor and Travis howled with laughter.

"Shut up Travis, we all _know_ you love Katie, and I don't think she'd like you trash talking her mother!" Nico snapped in defense of his sister, and the one Stoll brother instantly clamed up while the other laughed harder.

"Demeter has children of her own, _why…?"_ Hazel muttered under her breath, while Nico offered to Hades and the fountain water went black for a moment.

"Oh _that's_ pretty," Piper eyed the pitchy water as it gradually lightened back to normal.

"WITCHCRAFT!" Someone yelled.

"What was that?" Leo blinked sarcastically, putting a finger in his ear and flinching as the man that had appeared right next to him screamed right next to his ear.

"SORCERY!" He bellowed, catching the attention of everyone on the street. "DEMON SPAWN!" He screamed, snatching Nico's upper arm and dragging the boy back, shaking him in front of everyone watching the scene.

"I take offense to that," Nico muttered, frowning, before wrenching his arm away from the man and backing up a few skittering steps, dusting himself off and giving the man a death glare that had the guy backing up too, away from the kids.

"Ireneus, what are you saying? These young people have done nothing but praise the twins Apollo and Artemis, leave them be!" Said the man who had caught them outside his house earlier.

"No! This boy turned the water black as death! They are dangerous, Kleon, I beg of you all, listen to me!" The man named Ireneus howled to the people and they shifted away from the kids.

"Sir! Please! It was as trick of the light, we would never do black magic, we mean no harm!" Annabeth put on her best "teacher's pet" voice and tried to persuade him, but he just backed away farther from her.

"He shouldn't have been able to see that," Rachel murmured to the other demigods. "What about the mist?"

"Maybe it wasn't invented yet," Frank shrugged, and the others exchanged wide-eyed looks. Doing a quest would only be that much harder if the mortals knew exactly what was going on. It was hard enough when they didn't.

"No! Treachery! Monsters from Tartarus!"

"Please!" Nico snapped. "Have you ever _been_ to Tartarus!" he spat venomously, a nerve obviously being struck hard, and Percy grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back before he got them in more trouble.

"You saw nothing," Piper said calmly, and everyone froze and blinked once. "We're just normal kids out on a normal morning to praise the gods."

"I didn't see a thing… wait, what was I looking at?" Leo said, dazed and confused.

"I…" Ireneus fell for her charmspeak instantly, shaking his head rapidly, as well as the crowd behind him. "I'm sorry, forgive me! I don't know what came over me! Have a nice day!" He waved pleasantly and continued strolling down the road.

"There is no Mist…" Grover groaned.

"Oh, this is gonna be _so_ much fun…" Jason sighed.


	2. Great Nico, now you've done it

**Hello, internet. **

**I typed this out pretty fast and only edited it a couple times (not my normal standards AT ALL), so if there are spelling errors that annoy you, please tell me. I'm sure it's gonna bother me too at some point. **

**Enjoy. **

Things were not really working out in the Demigods favor.

The incident at the fountain was the first in a long day of issues, one after another without a break, and Piper was obviously getting wiped from charmspeaking half of Athens before lunch.

They passed a forge and Leo picked up a sword ("It was _beautiful_ guys! Excellent workmanship, I _need_ to get that guy to teach me a few tricks, or at least his autograph!") and no one but the crowd of mortals on the street noticed the blade had been white hot and in the flames a second before "It was an _honest_ mistake, I just don't take notice of stuff like that at home!"). Then they tried to go swimming and quite a few people noticed Percy and Annabeth didn't seem to surface for twenty minutes, _and_ were perfectly dry when they got out. After that they almost got run over by a bunch of guys on horses riding through a field, and only after Jason flew himself and Piper out of the way did he remember the mortals could _see_ him flying. All day people kept trying to pick up the diamonds and rubies and other gems seeming to follow Hazel around, and a few almost got away with it before she and Frank practically beat it out of their hands. That caused quite a scene multiple times.

And _all bloody day_ Nico was going off on people.

"Dude, _seriously?_ I knew you were annoying, but _this_ is an entirely other level!" Nico just glared at his cousins as Percy and Thalia tried to put him in a better mood after he started screaming at a man who'd knocked him over as he ran down the street.

"I don't know what it is!" He exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. "Something… something happened right before we got sent here, and I just… I _can't_ _remember_, but I have a feeling it was bad, 'cause I'm just…" He struggled for words.

"PMS-ing?" Travis supplied, and immediately dove out of the way as a stygian iron sword whistled by where his head was a moment ago. "Woah! Where's you get that!?" Noting the sudden appearance of Nico's sword in his hand.

"_Stoll…!"_ Nico hissed and darted after him as the twins took off down the street, away from the angry son of Hades.

"Piper?!" Jason's voice came suddenly, sounding worried as he caught his girlfriend, who'd apparently fallen asleep while they were walking.

"Is she ok?" Annabeth asked, jogging back to them to inspect what had happened.

"She's exhausted. She's already charm spoken at least a thousand people today, I don't think she can keep this up." He replied, worriedly brushing the hair from her face.

Annabeth nodded. "We need to figure out our quest and then get home as soon as possible before we have another-"

"WITCHCRAFT!"

"Dear gods, not _again!" _Annabeth face-palmed, standing swiftly to inspect what had happened. Down the street a large crowd had formed, but around what, they could see. "Can't we go _twenty minutes _withoutcausing a scene!? I swear, the minute we get back, I'm giving an offering to whoever thought of the Mist, because they're a genius!"

"Annabeth! Jason, Percy, Piper—woah is she ok?" Travis said as he and Connor came running up to them.

"She'll be fine, what happened?" Annabeth demanded.

"Nico was chasing us and his sword hit the ground-" Connor panted

"Uh oh," Percy mumbled.

"And there was a ghost-"

"And the people flipped-"

"And he got all angry-!"

"Where is he?" Thalia interrupted.

"They have him!" The chorused in a panic.

"They took him up to the Parthenon!" Connor finished.

Grover whimpered while Hazel gave a strangled noise.

"Isn't the Parthenon where they used to judge crimes?" Rachel said uncertainly. (**A/N I have no clue if that's true, just go with it)**

"One of its uses," Annabeth said, looking worried now. "We don't have Piper, we need to go in there and get him…"

"What's with him and getting captured? Isn't this, like, the third time it's happened?" Percy said indignantly and Grover shook his head at his friend's off-topic-ness.

"Uh, guys? Maybe we should go…?" Frank suggested, pointing at the crowd moving up the hill to the Parthenon.

"Alright! Let's go crash a court session!" Leo punched the air and took off, leading the charge as they raced after the crowd.

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The Parthenon looked nothing like what people had been depicting it to look like in its heyday. Annabeth and Leo had agreed that it must've gone through many renovations in its lifetime, for the thousands of years it stood before crumbling apart when Greece was invaded by Rome. They'd popped back in time probably early in its life, because the structure was all there, but the decoration and the purposes seemed to be different.

The reflecting pool wasn't a pool, just a lowered section of the floor where a long marble table stood with five old guys in the Greek garb sat with stern expressions—obviously some sort of judging panel. The Athena Pantheons (**A/N yeah, I'm ignoring it's part in Mark of Athena for now)** stood tall and beautiful front and center on the opposite end of the not-pool from where you walked in, but behind it was a sort of raised marble platform that definitely wasn't there in the 21st century. On the platform, ten or fifteen feet high or so, behind Athena sat an equally large stature of Zeus sitting on a throne. To his right was Poseidon, and to his left was Hades (similar to the real gods appearances, but not as good as Athena's, unfortunately). All along the sides were slightly smaller, but still massive statues of the remaining gods, and every one of them seemed to be looking judgmentally/angrily/fearfully at the not-pool area.

The crowd had gathered followers in its progress up the hill, so they were practically lining the walls, in between the pillars and statues, spectators all over the place to watch the court session. A group of a dozen or so men and women in the Greek clothing (uh, duh) stood in the lowered section of the floor of the not-pool area, Nico in front of them, facing the panel, his hands tied behind his back, looking half pissed, half bored and tired of this.

"He doesn't seem scared." Frank noted with a frown.

"He's just used to being captured by now," Percy commented, only to be cuffed over the head by Thalia and Annabeth at the same time.

"Tease him when he's here, not when he's in trouble, idiot!" Thalia hissed at him.

"Shhh!" Annabeth hushed them both. The twelve remaining demigods were trying to be inconspicuous in the crowd to the side, in between the statues of Hera and Artemis. It was noted that this was probably why quests were usually competed in groups of two or three: this many people was just plain awkward to move around easily.

"Is she going to be ok?" Hazel whispered to Jason, who was holding a still-unconscious Piper to his side in an attempt to keep her near the group and pretend she was still awake.

"She's coming around slowly, but even if she wakes all the way, there's no way she could charmspeak everyone here. We're on our own."

"Great. What could possibly go wrong?" Frank muttered, positively dripping with sarcasm.

"Real optimistic, aren't you?" Rachel noted, equally sarcastic.

"Ok, seriously guys, _shut up!"_ Annabeth hissed as the panel began to talk.

"What charges have you brought against this child?" The man in the center of the table said, and—oh, look who it is—Ireneus, the man who'd accused them earlier stepped forward out of the crowd behind Nico.

"Witchcraft, my liege!" He cried and the crowd behind him nodded and muttered in agreement. "He attacked two boys in town, and summoned a Ghost before our very eyes!" The panel raised some skeptical eyebrows, but the crowd and quite a few spectators started shouting their agreement and fear.

"Wow, didn't know they cared! I'm touched!" Travis pretended to wipe a tear from his eye.

"They're not accusing him for attacking you," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"We're going to ignore that fact." Conner said simply.

"Sire, he doesn't even deny it! He refuses to speak when we question him!" Another man in the crowd said.

The judge frowned at Nico. "Disrespect of an elder is as grave an accusation as this supposed witchcraft, boy. Do you have nothing to say in your own defense?"

Nico glared at him until the man was fidgeting in his seat, but remained silent.

"See! This insolence must be dealt with!" Ireneus cried. "Lashes! Labor! We must put him to work!"Nico muttered something under his breath, glaring at the floor, Ireneus gripped him by the upper arm again and shook him. "What was that boy?!"

"Stai zitto! Stai zitto!" He exploded, wrenching his arm away and yelling at the top of his lungs to the man. "Ho detto zitto idiota imbecille, è dannatamente patetico pezzo di schiuma non si dovrebbe nemmeno essere a piedi questa terra si-!" He shot in rapid Italien, rambleing on.

"Woah, since when did he speak Italian?" Travis gaped.

"He _is_ from Italy originally…" Percy allowed, but sounded unsure.

"His _mom's_ from Italy, and he's not supposed to remember anything about her or his life before the Lotus Casino." Annabeth argued, frowning at the scene before them.

"Well, it's obviously coming back to him." Thalia noted.

"Do we even know what he's saying?" Grover wondered.

"Uh, not nice things I wouldn't be repeating to children." Jason hedged.

"You speak Italian?" Leo asked, surprised.

Hazel answered, "Rome was in Italy. We may not be fluent, but Italian is based heavily on Latin, and we know enough."

"And the curse words are what you learn first." Jason added, making the Stolls and Leo snicker.

"So, yeah, we know what he's saying." Frank bit his lip to keep from smiling. "I just can't believe he's actually saying it to them."

"He's having an off day." Percy shrugged, defending him.

"Thank the gods they don't speak Italian," Thalia sighed, "He'd be dead on sight."

"Are we going to sit here discussing this, or are we going to help him? Just because they don't speak Italian, doesn't mean they don't still know he's yelling at them." Rachel huffed.

"SILENCE!" One of the judges roared, cutting off Nico's yells. Said boy simply glared at him. "Does he even understand what we are saying to him?"

"He spoke Greek earlier, he understands." Ireneus maintained. "He is simply being insolent."

"Gee, thanks, I try." Nico quipped.

Annabeth face-palmed.

"He's really not helping his case, is he?" Rachel sighed.

"Come on Nico, work with them, _please!"_ Hazel pinched the bridge of her nose again.

"What's the matter with him?" Frank frowned. "Does he not know his life's in the balance here?"

"I'm gonna maintain my theory about him being used to being captured by now." Percy supplied, and Thalia hit him again.

"We control your fate, boy." A judge threatened darkly. "you should be afraid, and show some respect. We could end your life easily, and your words are digging your grave the longer you speak."

Nico actually _laughed_ at that.

"_Please!_ You are not the scariest panel I've ever seen, and you are most certainly not as scary or as threatening as being grounded by my father, so you're going to have to do better than _that."_ He laughed in their faces while their eyebrows shot up, some looking shocked, others looking angered.

"I wonder what Hades does to ground his kids?" Leo wondered.

"You know what, I'm pretty sure we don't want to know." Thalia decided.

"No, you don't. You really don't." Hazel sighed and those around her exchanged worried glances.

"Enough! Enough of this!" Said the center judge, raising one arm and gesturing to someone in the back of the crowd, who all shifted excitedly at that motion. "Even if this accusation of witchcraft weren't true, I've seen enough."

"Agreed." Said the judge to his right.

"This boy is disrespectful to an unacceptable degree, we cannot allow it." Said another.

"We are in agreement then?" A fourth said, and the fifth nodded along with the first three. The crowd parted and two soldiers in full Greek armor holding large spears came up behind Nico and each gripped one of his arms firmly. Nico looked surprised and a bit confused at this.

"Your sentencing is final; insolence is not tolerated in the courts… and justice is swift." The center judge said, frowning at the boy before him. The group of accusers backed out of the way and the crowd leaned forward in anticipation.

"What's happening?" Connor whispered, but the demigods looked confused as well.

"I'm… not sure. There should be a further trial and investigation, then a sentencing committee and a public debate…" Annabeth murmured, more to herself than anything, looking more and more panicked. "This isn't how history says it happens…"

The crowd fell silent and the demigods gasped as one as a third solider came through the crowd, following the first two, a sword drawn and braced in both hands as he approached where Nico was being held still, looking in confusion at the judges in front of him, unaware of the man raising his sword behind him.

"NO!" Percy and Thalia didn't even realize they'd screamed out at the same time until both were suddenly in the lowered area, Riptide suddenly in Percy's hand, a great silver bow with an arrow locked and loaded in Thalia's arms, pointing at the man with the sword behind Nico. Percy swiftly used the hilt of his sword to knock Nico's guards out of the way and slice through the bindings around his wrists. The son of Hades seemed surprised and a bit alarmed to turn and see the man ready to kill him a few feet away, frozen as Thalia aimed at him, her eyes blazing in fury.

Everyone was utterly shocked at the new arrivals, who grouped together and looked out at the crowd in defensive positions. Nico flexed his wrist and his stygian iron sword materialized back in his hand as he slipped into a defensive position as well.

Everyone was frozen in shock, staring as the three prepared to fight.

**Sorry, crappy ending, but it had to end somewhere and I like to keep my chapters around 2,500 words or so. **

**Plus, I love some good suspense. **

**:P**


	3. Well, that's nice of them

**Hello internet. **

**So, where were we?**

_*previously* __**(you have to think it in an announcer's voice for like, NCIS or West Wing or something)**_

"_NO!" _

_Percy and Thalia didn't even realize they'd screamed out at the same time until both were suddenly in the lowered area, Riptide suddenly in Percy's hand, a great silver bow with an arrow locked and loaded in Thalia's arms, pointing at the man with the sword behind Nico. Percy swiftly used the hilt of his sword to knock Nico's guards out of the way and slice through the bindings around his wrists. The son of Hades seemed surprised and a bit alarmed to turn and see the man ready to kill him a few feet behind him, frozen as Thalia aimed at him, her eyes blazing in fury. _

_Everyone was utterly shocked at the new arrivals, who grouped together and looked out at the crowd in defensive positions. Nico flexed his wrist and his stygian iron sword materialized back in his hand as he slipped into a defensive position as well. _

_Everyone was frozen in shock, staring as the three prepared to fight. _

"Stop! Stop this!" The center judge jumped to his feet, breaking the room from their shock. He must have sensed the three guards (two already groaning in pain on the ground) would never match the three young adults preparing to fight their way out. "Why have you disrupted the courts?! You anger the gods by fighting in their temple?"

"Ha! This isn't justice, and the gods better not mind our fighting for our lives, for everything we did for them!" Thalia snapped. "What happened to due process? What happened to mercy?! He's a child, a boy!"

"Oi!" Nico huffed, but she ignored him.

"Killing a thirteen year old boy by stabbing him in the back, when he doesn't even see it coming!? What kind of justice is that? What kind of people do that?! Whatever you think justice is, let me tell you that you're just plain wrong!" She let her arrow fly, and it hit the hilt of the executioner's blade, knocking it out of his hands with a clatter. The man half raised his arms in surrender as she loaded another arrow before anyone could blink, again aiming it at him. Better him than a civilian, and this way she could keep her guard up.

"What the courts do is none of your concern! What gives you the right to-" A judge started to argue, but the center judge held up his hand to silence him.

"What is this boy to you? Why do you care for his fate?" He asked reasonably.

"He's our cousin." Percy supplied, responding to the level-headed tone better than being yelled at. He hoped they might be able to talk their way out of this after all.

The center judge frowned. "Family ties are strong, but tell me, are they strong enough for you to willingly give up your lives simply to defend him?"

"Woah, woah, woah!" The confrontation was broken by the other ten demigods coming from out of the crowd and standing on the edge of the lowered floor, looking down at them, their weapons all drawn as well.

"Family ties might be a bit sketchy and weird in our family, but it's all we got, so you better not be thinking about offing our—wait, what are they to us? Uncles and aunt? Ugh, that's weird."

"Shut up, Leo." Piper hissed, having woken up somewhere in this ordeal, looking pale and unstable, but standing on her own power with her dagger clutched tightly in her fist. Jason was hovering close by her side, also prepared to fight, yet obviously protect her as well.

"Wonderful! More delinquents!" A judge snapped at them.

"Oi! Who you callin' delinquents?!" Travis shouted.

"I think he means us, bro!" Connor said in mock astonishment.

Travis suddenly shrugged, anger abruptly forgotten. "Oh, yeah, that's a fair cop."

"Not helping." Thalia sighed.

"What do you want to do?" Annabeth accused the center judge. "Kill us all? Thirteen children of Athens gone in a single day, in the temple of the gods no less?"

"Yeah, killing us in their temple's gonna go over _great."_ Nico rolled his eyes.

"Shut up Niccy, you're the reason we're here in the first place!" Thalia snapped.

"Don't call me Niccy!"

"Child."

"_Tree!_"

"Useless little twerp!"

"Celibate prude!"

"That's it! You can kill him now! See what I care!"

Thalia and Nico had lowered their weapons as they argued, getting in each other's faces as they snapped back and forth.

"Guys! Not the time!" Percy worriedly interrupted them.

"Enough! You are all _children_! Arrest them!" The center judge pressed his temples fiercely at the irritating arguing. By that time more soldiers had arrived, and about twenty appeared through the crowd, the civilians backing away quickly, trying to become one with the walls behind them as they sensed the unexpected fight about to break out.

"YO! EVERYONE QUIT IT! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE _RELAXING_ YOU IDIOTS!"

Everyone froze, because the vast, booming male voice that had everyone covering their ears it was so loud, was coming from Rachel. She stood in her very girly white maiden's dress, frizzy red hair pined up atop her head with white ribbons woven through it, at the base of the statue of Apollo. Each statue was set upon a platform about four feet tall, so standing on Apollo's base made her visible throughout the hall. Everyone could see her, could definitely see her green eyes glowing like lime green flashlights, and everyone could plainly hear the definitely male voice coming from her very female lips.

The mortals may have been able to see everything without the Mist, but that didn't mean any of them could process what they were seeing now.

What was even stranger was that Percy recognized the voice. Maybe it was the statue that poorly resembled the real god standing directly above her, but it came to him almost instantly.

"Apollo?" He said stupidly, lowering his sword in astonishment. Why didn't the god just appear? Why go through the trouble of talking through his Oracle?

"Sup cousin," Rachel/Apollo smirked and nodded to Percy, his/her glowing green eyes flaring unnaturally and got all the mortals near to back away hastily. "Listen demigods! Ok, I'm the Apollo from your time, and yes your memories are screwed up, I did that."

"Uh, _why?_" Thalia snapped. She disliked Apollo on principle, simply for trying to hit on every Hunter of Artemis because they belonged to his twin, to whom he was forever trying to annoy. "It's not like we were doing anything _important_ you know!" She cried, abandoning her cousins striding across the floor to stand directly beneath the Oracle/god, crossing her arms and glaring up at him/her.

"Oh! Hey Thals! Tell sis I said hi! And yes, I recognize you were doing something important, all the gods do. Well, not Zeus. Sorry, but your dad's an ass." Thundered rolled across the cloudless sky. Some of the mortals jumped.

"Oh, don't you dare!" Thalia shouted skyward, and it fell silent.

"Anyway," Apollo/Rachel said. "Your parents and I recognize you're all doing a great deed for us, but we also know things you don't, 'cuz we're just awesomely semi-all-knowing like that." He/she flashed them a smile, and even Rachel's mortal teeth seemed to glint unnaturally bright. "_We know_, that you're all wiped. Things happened, and you're all screwed up mentally and physically from these past couple quests and all this crap going on."

"Gee, thanks for noticing." Percy rolled his eyes.

"Anytime," Apollo smiled, letting them know he didn't miss the sarcasm but let it slide with good humor. "As I was saying, you've all been on some tough tasks recently, and now you're about to enter into the biggest battle… uh, _ever._ You need to be at the top of your game, and well, you aren't."

"Comforting." Annabeth sighed.

"What _I_ did," He continued. "Was organize a little time warp for you, sending you back to a time I thought you might enjoy. Get a little R and R going, without stressful memories and concerns weighing you down for a couple days, weeks, whatever, then set you back in your time all refreshed and ready to take on whatever you need to do! Technically, you'll only be gone three seconds."

The demigods were shocked.

"That's… really… _nice _of you_."_ Piper blinked, amazed.

"Can you even _do_ that? I mean, do demigods ever _get_ breaks?" Hazel marveled.

Apollo/Rachel laughed. "Ahhh, no. Not really. This is definitely a first! You see, I may be the god of prediction, so time is sorta my thing, but it takes quite a bit of juice to send someone back and forth in time, much less this far back. Each god and goddess picked someone to patron that they felt needed the break, and here you are! Zeus… well, he's a major stick in the mud, and we got him to contribute some power by saying it was to help stop Gaea, but he didn't know the specifics, so he didn't technically sponsor anyone."

"What about us?" The Stolls chorused. "We're not really on any quests currently, how do we deserve a break?"

Apollo smirked. "Ah, Hermes and I find you two a riot! Bit of comic relief I think the rest of 'em will enjoy, right?" The brothers positively lit up upon hearing their dad thought they were funny.

"Rachel here is so I could communicate with you through the millennia, Grover was because he's Percy's best friend and Dionysus wasn't about to send one of his own sons or –imagine!—another demigod." A couple laughed at the idea of Dionysus trying to pick out which demigod he hated the _least_ to send.

"But _Demeter_ sponsored me," Hazel said, lifting her arm to show him. "She doesn't even like me because of who my dad is! How…?"

"She has no children in the quests, and her daughter's husband had two. She may not care for him, but she doesn't hold grudges against demigods, she thought it only fair you both come."

"Crap, now I have to be nice to her?" Nico grumbled, but he was ignored.

"That's…" Jason was at a loss of words and looked around at his friends for help.

"Easily the freakin' _nicest_ thing our parents have _ever_ done for us." Leo supplied, blinking in shock as well.

"Yeah, we are pretty awesome!" Apollo/Rachel beamed.

"Thank you, Lord Apollo." Piper said earnestly.

"Any time honey," He/she winked at her.

"Oh don't you dare, you-!" Thalia cut off her own insult, and maintained– through an enormous amount of effort– to purse her lips and simply nod her thanks to the ego-inflated god.

"Hey! Thals was nice to me! That's one for the record books!" The god laughed.

"Why _this_ time period though? Things aren't exactly going so well, it's not really… uh, _relaxing_ yet, seeing as we were about to get into a fight with a room full of mortals." Frank asked, quietly.

"Well, you weren't going about it right, were you? I'm sure things will go fine from now on, just… be a bit more like me, yeah?"

"What? An egotistical moron?" Thalia blurted out before she could stop herself, and the god just waved her off, too used to it by now to care.

"Exactly! I know you guys hate to admit you have a god as a parent, but this is the one time where flaunting that little fact will make your lives infinitely easier!"

"What? So we're just supposed to ride on our parent's coattails while we're here?" Hazel frowned.

"Exactly! Just for a few days, and it won't affect history, I promise! Athena helped me figure out all the details if that comforts you any."

"Well… yeah, actually, it does." Annabeth and Thalia nodded in agreement.

"Perfect!" He/she threw his/her arms up in the air and gleamed that unnatural smile. "Ok then, that's settled! See you, uh, in a few days or weeks to you, a few seconds to me! Peace out!" His/her eyes began to glow brighter and brighter. "Oh, and uh, someone catch her!" He added as an afterthought before there was a flash of green and yellow light, and suddenly Rachel was tumbling forward off the Apollo statue's base. Thalia lurched forward easily and caught her. She was out cold, like she'd just given a prophecy.

"Whoopee! We're on vacation!" The Stolls and Leo cried, giving each other high-fives.

"Y-y-y-y-ou'r-re…. y-y-you're… b-b-b-but I-I d-d-don't…." The demigods' celebrations were cut short as they realized they were still in a room full of mortals, and every one of their faces was ashen with eyes blown wide. One of the judges was trying to speak and failing spectacularly.

"Whoops, forgot about that…" Leo muttered, shifting uncomfortably under fifty stares.

"We come in peace?" Grover said hesitantly as the crowd continued to gawk at them.

"You're lying! It was a t-trick! That girl was s-simply acting… i-it's not possible! Y-you're lying!" A judge off to the left was stammering.

"I gotta say, that would be an epic magic trick." Travis considered, leaning over and whispering to Connor who smiled and started nodding.

"T-trickery!" A man from the crowd shouted, but his voice cracked and he didn't quite seem so sure of himself.

"You don't believe us? What are you having difficulty with?" Jason offered, and the other demigods had a hard time figuring out is that was meant to be sarcastic and condescending, or actually legitimately helpful. It was hard to tell with Jason.

"That-that voice from the girl, that-that…"

"Was Apollo," Annabeth supplied. ", god of the sun, music, medicine, poetry-"

"Big-headedness, egotism, conceited arrogance—"

"Yes, Thals, point taken." Her friend smiled amusedly at the hunter's distaste.

"How can you speak of a god with such contempt?! How could you disrespect him so? In their temple no less!" A woman in a brown dress in the crowd cried out in a panic, glancing at the stature like they might come to life and bite her.

Thalia huffed. "Listen, lady, if you knew him-"

"Her name is Thalia Grace, and she's the Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, forever sworn a maiden, and Apollo has a history of courting his twin's Hunters to get on Lady Artemis' nerves." Annabeth explained quickly.

"Yeah!" Thalia exclaimed, sniffing angrily and fixing the tiara on her head in pride at her position. "And what bothers my Lady is considered _scum_ in my book!" She complained defiantly, shooting the sky—where the sun was slowly moving toward the west—a murderous glare. "And I HATE poetry!" She shouted at the sun for good measure.

"You know, you're yelling at the wrong Apollo." Percy pointed out. "That's this era's Apollo."

"Shut up kelp head!"

"What'd I do?! I was just—"

"Stop talking, before I gut you like a fish!"

"Oh, _hey_! What'd fish ever do to you?"

"_Taste_ good, that's what! What the matter? You look a little green! Sea sick?"

"Ugh, you win, you win! Just don't talk about eating fish _please…_" Percy shuddered, indeed looking rather queasy.

"You speak… you speak as if you've met… met the, uh…" The center judge grumbled.

"Met the gods? Only once or twice." Piper clarified.

"Once or twice too many, for some of them." Percy grumbled.

"Yeah, I could've done without ever meeting Hera." Annabeth sniffed.

"Agreed!" Leo nodded vigorously.

"_Apollo,_" Thalia spat.

"Demeter…!" Nico piped up, eyes wide. "Or Persephone…" He shook the bad memories away and shivered. "Stupid daisy…" He muttered darkly.

"My father." Hazel sighed, closing her eyes as if the memory actually hurt her.

"You claim… a _god_ to be your father?" A judge scoffed at her.

"You got a problem with that?" Nico snapped at him for talking to his sister that way.

"Claiming a _god_ to be your parent! It's blasphemy!" He retorted. "Can you really stand there and stand by these lies?!"

"YES!" The Stolls exchanged a loaded glance and walked as one up to the center judge, leaning their hands on the marble table and looking at him "innocently".

"Connor,"

"and Travis,"

"Stoll." They chorused.

"Sons of Hermes,"

"master thieves,"

"funny as all be it,"

"as the most awesome Apollo mentioned,"

"thank you very much!"

"And all around the most awesome persons,"

"_ever_!" They finished as one.

Travis lifted an eyebrow. "Problem?" The leaned back and backed away from the table, crossing their arms mischievously, smirking at him.

"You honestly expect me to believe this nonsense? That you are sons of a god!? What foolishness!" He cried.

"Oh yea?" Connor challenged.

"Then how'd we get this?" Travis uncrossed his arms and held up a small purple draw-string bag with silver string embroidered on it. The judge's eyes went wide and clutched at a place on his belt, where his money pouch was no longer.

"Thieves!" He cried.

"Thank you, thank you very much!" Travis did a deep bow.

"Sons of Hermes!" Connor reminded him, laughing.

"Entertainers extraordinaire!" Travis agreed, fist-bumping his brother.

"Return it at once!"

Connor raised an eyebrow. "Sons of Hermes." He repeated, as if that explained it. Well, technically it did.

"Don't be an idiot, give it back!" Annabeth slapped the both upside the head, snatching the pouch and tossing it back.

"Party tricks." Nico scoffed jokingly at the brothers, who split into evil grins at the implied challenge.

"You are thieves, that does not prove your father is _the_ thief!" The judge stood his ground.

Nico began to smile a smile that had everyone—including the demigods—back up a step. His eyes darted to the side briefly before laughing once.

"That may not prove it, but how about this?"

And just like that he was gone, seeming to have simple fallen into the floor like it wasn't there, like he was a ghost passing through solid objects with no trouble. Only the demigods noticed that he had been standing on Percy's shadow.

Almost a full second later, they heard him yell "Boo!" and Leo screamed – a very _manly _scream, mind you!—as his hair and hands caught fire. Nico leapt back from the flaming boy, laughing hysterically, with a laugh that chilled the room as easily as Leo's flames heated it up.

"Don't _do_ that!" Leo cried, swatting out the flames in his hair and trying to extinguish the flames on his hands by wiping them on his robes, but all it did was leave ash and soot marks on the tan fabric. "Crap! I can't get my heart rate down!" He muttered, trying to calm down from his scare to get the fire out.

"Great gods-!" The judges leapt back, their faces obviously showing that they expected to see a burned corpse momentarily.

"He'll be fine." Piper reassured them. "He's the son of Hephaestus and a fire user. The flames can't hurt him."

"Yeah! But they're freaking annoying!" Leo called, managing to swat the last tongues of flame out, but his dark curly hair looked like coals still smoldering at the end of a campfire with bits of orange embers glinting and fluttering away as they caught the breeze. His ears were still smoking, his cheeks still red from embarrassment, but he was utterly fine. "On the upside, I've never gotten sun burn!" He said thoughtfully, and Nico and the Stolls snickered.

"Impossible…" The center judge said in a daze, but sounded a hundred percent less sure of himself than he had a moment ago.

"Listen," Thalia said reasonably, moving to stand before the marble table. "Let's move past the 'I can't believe my eyes' stage and get right to the 'I'm the daughter of Zeus, and you just tried to stab my little cousin in the back, _oh shit!_ that sucks for you!' part of this meeting." She leaned forward, glaring in obvious distaste at the man, emanating such power as her eyes and hands flickered with electricity that all five judges cowered away from her.

She pursued her lips in expectation. "Care to defend yourself?"


	4. Stupid Sandy

**THANK THE GODS, IT'S ABOUT FREAKING TIME!**

**Oh, Hello Internet. **

**So, I've had this next chapter half done since Sunday, but there was this whole Hurricane Sandy thing going on over on the East coast. **

**Yeah, not my problem …until I lose power and my house starts flooding. **

**I know, inconvenient right?**

**BUT DON'T WORRY… I saved my computer. All is not lost!**

**Any-who, eight at night on Friday, everything's dry, and the lights come back on, and I'm like: "FANFICTION. . NOW…!"**

**So yeah…. Please don't kill me! I've got a legitimate excuse for my tardiness, and if you got issues, take it up with the Hurricane!**

**Next chapter will be up in the next 24hrs maximum, and I hope to be a bit faster now that I'm back in the land of civilization!**

**Danke!**


	5. Yes, we know we rule

**Hello internet. **

**Seriously, if you have ideas of where this should go, please tell me. My creative engine is half empty, so this might be wrapping up sooner than I'd like if is don't get input. **

**Seriously. **

**Like, **_**seriously. **_

**Oh, and because I forgot throughout this thing, I'll do it now:**

**I do not own anything but some kickass poetry I will never show anyone. So… yeah. **

**That's all. **

**(p.s. I did this kinda hastily, re-organizing it a bunch kinda quickly, it may be slightly disjointed. Sorry, I'm having trouble figuring out where I want this to go.) **

**Enjoy. **

_***previously***_

"_Impossible…" The center judge said in a daze, but sounded a hundred percent less sure of himself than he had a moment ago. _

"_Listen," Thalia said reasonably, moving to stand before the marble table. "Let's move past the 'I can't believe my eyes' stage and get right to the 'I'm the daughter of Zeus, and you just tried to stab my little cousin in the back, oh shit! that sucks for you!' part of this meeting." She leaned forward, glaring in obvious distaste at the man, emanating such power as her eyes and hands flickered with electricity that all five judges cowered away from her. _

_She pursued her lips in expectation. "Care to defend yourself?" _

The men just blinked rapidly at her.

"Daughter of Zeus?" One repeated in a small squeak.

"Yep." She said simply, pretending to check her nails casually and letting electricity flow from her fingertips in mini bolts of lightning. "_And_ a Hunter. _Lieutenant_ of the Hunters of Artemis in fact. Meaning I could kick all five your asses with my eyes closed."

"She's _really_ enjoying this 'flaunt your skills' thing." Frank noted.

"Technically, she's just being truthful." Grover argued.

"Yeah, but she could do it nicer." Hazel frowned.

"I dunno, I'm enjoying watching grown men wet themselves at the sight of a fifteen year old girl." Nico allowed, and that earned quite a few smiles from the group.

Thalia most certainly did seem to be enjoying herself, as she laid her bow and quiver down on the marble table and hopped up onto it, taking a seat and making herself comfortable.

"As much as I am loathe to take advice from the _original_ ball of hot air," She announced pointedly to the demigods, but loud enough for everyone in the temple to hear, "I think I'm going to enjoy this." She kicked her feet back and forth and grinned cheekily at the mortals gaping at her. She patted the table next to her. "Come on Annabeth, let your hubris out some, huh?" She smirked, and Annabeth rolled her eyes before hopping up and leaning against her friend.

"You're unbelievable," She rolled her gray eyes at her friend's antics.

"Listen mortals!" Thalia commanded loudly. "This is Annabeth Chase, Architect of Olympus and smarter than every one of you combined, _and_ daughter of Athena! You know, the goddess you named you city after?" She grinned, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder at the Athena Pantheons. Annabeth blushed heavily, but many saw that she smirked a bit proudly as well.

"Oh my gods!" Several women in the crowd gasped and they kneeled. Annabeth blushed even more, getting a bit freaked now.

"Woah. _Bowing_… that's weird." Leo laughed, a bit nervously.

"I think I get what Apollo was saying that things would get better." Jason, said softly, smiling a bit uncertainly.

"Yeah, now that they're catching on to who we are…" Travis beamed.

"The more respect we're getting!" Connor finished. "Huh! Who'd've thought we'd only need to travel a couple millennia to get that?"

"You called yourself demigods?" A man stepped forward. He was dressed in the Greek clothes, but they were different somehow, made of a simple, uniform tan with little to no embellishment, just a golden rope tied around his waist. He had cropped brown hair and hazel eyes, and he didn't look mistrustful, only incredibly hopeful at the young adults before the crowd.

"Yes. "Demi" meaning "half", and "god"… well yeah. Half god. We all have a mortal and an immortal parent." Piper explained nervously, eyes flashing to her companions as if double checking to make sure they weren't going to stop her from saying too much. Explaining this to _mortals_ (who weren't parents) was definitely a first.

"You're a temple keeper," Annabeth noticed his unique clothing. "You study the gods and keep the temple. _This_ temple."

"That's an oftly big temple to keep," Leo muttered, craning his neck to take in the entire Parthenon stretched up and around them.

"Yes, my name is Elpis, I… I have studied all our history, and everything we've learned of the gods. The great heroes of old and even modern times were said to be more than human, descendants of the gods themselves… but they were just stories and urban legends to teach us our history until today." He looked like his dream had officially come true, gazing at the demigods. "I believe what you say. If it is true, I must confess, I am truly and eternally honored to meet you all."

The demigods were stunned into silence as Elpis kneeled, bowing to them. Even Thalia in her bravado act for the mortals, was stunned humble at this man's earnest words.

"Please," Percy begged him, moving forward after a split second and gently pulling the guy to his feet by one of his arms. "We have no control over who our parents are, and we _are_ mortal. Please…" A light blush spread across his cheeks and he kept his sea green eyes glued to the ground, too flustered by the man's admiration to finish his thoughts.

"Oh Seaweed Brain, you never could take a compliment." Annabeth sighed, and Percy blushed harder.

"Seaweed… you are a son of Poseidon?" Elpis eyes widened in wonder at Percy, who was officially beet red. He stepped back and scratched the back of his head, looking anywhere but the kind man.

"Uh… well, yeah…" He mumbled, embarrassed.

"Hades yeah! He's my cousin— as much as I abhor that." Thalia said loudly, breaking the awkward moment for Percy.

The judges behind her seemed to stiffen. "And… and this other boy-"

"You know what? I really don't want to talk to you." Thalia told the center judge behind her matter-of-factly, without even turning around. "I don't know, it's might just be something about you guys being dirty bastards in trying to stab my twelve year old cousin in the back for back-talking or whatever, but I'm not too fond of you. Any of you." She glanced to her left and right at the other judges.

She turned her electric blue eyes to Elpis and nodded in his direction. "But you seem decent though. Level-headed and whatnot. Any questions for us?"

And just like that, the panel of judges lost all its credibility in the eyes of the mortals watching. The judges knew it too, for as the mortals slowly accepted what was going on and began inching forward to watch the demigods and the temple keeper talk— getting comfortable to listen intently to what the children of the gods would say— the judges re-took their seats, acknowledging that the masses had officially forgotten they were there.

"I… I have so many." Elpis bowed his head, flushed with excitement at this warm welcome. "But… I think the council was about to ask, if you three are cousins, and you are a daughter of Zeus, and you a son of Poseidon, does that mean…?" He pointed to Thalia then Percy, but seeing Nico he faltered as the twelve year old in black was glaring murderously at the five judges.

"Yeah, my dad's Hades. What of it?" He raised his eyebrows pointedly at the judges who were literally quaking in their seats, trying very hard to become one with their chair cushions. I suppose they had right to be nervous, it wasn't every day you almost execute the son of the god of death.

"Yeah, so trying to kill him when his overprotective cousins are in the room is obviously one of the _stupidest_ ideas mankind has ever had." Thalia pointed out, smirking at the grown men shivering in fear at children.

"I wouldn't call us _overprotective,_" Percy frowned.

"I would." Annabeth cut him off, and he huffed while she grinned triumphantly, knowing he wouldn't argue back to her.

"I second that thought." Nico grumbled as he rolled his eyes at his cousins. "But I should thank you, I guess…" He mumbled, kicking the ground as his cousins nodded their approval at that.

"Wait, the girl— or, er, Apollo… he said a god patroned each of you to come to us?"

"I did what now…?" Rachel muttered, coming back to consciousness, and Hazel leaned over and quickly and quietly filled her in on everything she'd missed since Apollo possessed her.

"Yes. It seems each of our respective parents, well on the most part, sort of sponsored our trip back." Annabeth explained.

"But there are thirteen of you…?"

"Yeah, I'm Poseidon," Percy said.

"Athena," Annabeth nodded.

"I'm a daughter of Zeus, but was sponsored by Lady Artemis," Thalia added, showing the inside of her arm for proof.

"I'm a son of Jup- uh, Zeus, but I was sponsored by Hera… long story short, she's my patron." Jason said, running a hand through his hair uncertainly.

"I was sent by my mother, Aphrodite." Piper said, almost reluctantly, and blushed as several men and boys in the room gaped.

"I'm a daughter of Hades," Hazel said, and the judges cowered again (she smirked a bit at it, though it also unnerved her) "But I was patroned by Demeter because she didn't have anyone to send…"

"Uh… Ares sent me." Frank said, noticing they were going in a circle and feeling it was his turn.

"Hephaestus!" Leo cheered.

"Apollo." Rachel raised her hand wearily, getting to her feet unsteadily.

"Hermes and/or Zeus!" The Stolls hollered.

"Though Zeus doesn't really know he inadvertently sponsored one of us…" Connor added as an afterthought.

"Er, Dionysus." Grover muttered, so low that they had to ask him to repeat himself louder.

"Who?" Elpis frowned.

"What do you mean 'who'? The god of wine and theater and parties and stuff!" Leo cried.

"And Satyrs," Grover added.

"One of the twelve Olympian gods…?" Jason frowned as well.

"I'm not familiar with him," Elpis said tentatively.

"Wait! Mr. D used to be a demigod! He was a son of Zeus, and then he earned immortality and became a god… he may not even be born yet in this time." Annabeth marveled and the rest of the demigods exchanged wild looks. (**A/N again, I don't really care if that's factual or not)**

"Sweet! No Mr. D? This is awesome!" Connor and Leo high fived.

"Huh, this might be relaxing after all," Percy laughed.

"Yeah, as long as monsters don't—!"

"Shut up you idiot! Don't jinx us!" Piper whacked Leo on the back of his head before he could finished his sentence.

"We may be safe from quests or responsibilities, but there are still monsters around." Jason reminded him.

"Yeah, and with our luck, and the fact there are ten demigods in one place unprotected, we're probably drawing every monster in Greece to this one spot." Frank said thoughtfully.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot." Leo said impishly.

"Unprotected? Nonsense." Nico dismissed him, lifting one hand, palm down, slowly, and the doorways and openings suddenly dimmed like there was suddenly thick screen netting covering the entrances and exits. Some mortals near then jumped a bit and skittered back a few steps.

"There." Nico said in satisfaction. "Call it an early warning system and monster repellant." He grinned and the demigods nodded in approval.

"Excellent." Annabeth said, watching the doorways as if trying to dissect how they work.

The mortals on-looking were no longer frightened and horrified by the display of power, but more amazed and marveling, some even smiling as if they couldn't believe their fortune at picking the best day _ever_ to watch a court session. They all seemed to have quickly acknowledged the power of the children before them, and were watching with the rapt attention and devotion they gave their gods. The demigods felt this, and though it was embarrassing and overwhelming for them as well, it was nice in a strange way.

An appreciated demigod.

Who'd have thought?

Silently, they all agreed Apollo was their new favorite god (only briefly in that one moment for some _*cough*_ Thalia*_cough*cough*_) but they recognized the value of what they had in this moment:

Respect.

They had people that loved them for doing nothing but existing. For once in their often-short lives, being a demigod was a good thing. It made them smile.

"So, Elpis, what do you do around here for fun?" Nico asked brightly, apparently over his earlier temper tantrum and bad mood.

Elpis gulped as the son of Hades walked over and sat near him on the edge of the lowered area, leaning back like he owned the place. The temple keeper seemed overwhelmed. "You… you are not angry with us? Not fifteen minutes ago you were almost killed at the hands of our courts…!" He seemed afraid to bring it up, but relaxed as Nico just shrugged (the judges, too, loosening their shoulders a bit as Nico did not get up and kill them for the reminder).

"Whatever. If I minded every time I nearly got killed, I'd go insane within a week."

"Nah, it's more like a couple days, isn't it?" Leo offered thoughtfully.

"Forget that! Depending who you are, it could be less than a day!" Travis and Connor laughed.

"Near-death experiences are part of the job descriptions of being a demigod." Annabeth explained.

"It's dangerous?" A woman from the crown blurted out, then clamped her hands over her mouth and looked like she was about to be hit.

"Oh yeah," Percy smiled warmly at her to show it was ok. "Apparently, we smell." The woman looked relieved they didn't mind her speaking out, but confused at his words.

"What he _means_ is that the monsters you tell stories about are real, and they have a penchant for being able to sniff out every demigod within a thousand miles." Annabeth clarified. "Hence the protections. Ten demigods in one place, as Frank said, means every monster in Greece is headed right there."

"The monsters make it dangerous yeah. That and the gods just _love_ to mess with us: sending us on quests, messing with our love lives, using us a chess pieces," Frank –to the surprise of everyone—rattled off quickly and rather sharply.

"I am not a demigod, and trust me, I'm thankful for that." Rachel declared.__"No offense guys, but I could barely handle the two or three near death experiences I've seen, much less on a daily basis!"

"None taken." Hazel assured her.

"You're not a demigod?!" The woman spoke again, surprised. "Not a daughter of Apollo?"

"Argh, no! I'm the Oracle of Delphi, I speak the prophecies of the fates and all that stuff." She said. "But it means I've got to stay close to the demigods, 'cause I'm usually prophsising their deaths or the end of the world or something equally as horrible." She flashed everyone a sarcastic grin, and though mortals looked alarmed, the demigods just rolled their eyes.

"Everyone else is?" Elpis asked uncertainly.

Grover hesitantly raised his hand. "Uh… I'm just a Satyr, I just—"

"Forget that!" Percy yelled the same time Thalia and Nico yelled less than appropriate forms of outrage. "You're the _best_ protector _ever_, and you've replaced Pan as a Lord of the Wild, so cut the modesty! We most certainly are!"

"Well, _we _are. Percy's gonna be all noble and stuff, so don't go by his example." Thalia said reasonably, and they laughed as Percy blushed again.

"You've _replaced_ Pan?!" Elpis all but squeaked.

"Our time is a different world," Grover said sadly, and Rachel looked away in shame. "Nature just isn't as respected as it is now. Pan, he held on for so many millennia, but his realm all but disappeared and he faded away. All that's left is me and whoever joins me in restoring what little nature the world has left." He sighed heavily, and everyone fell silent in a moment of respect for the fallen god.

"I hope the current Pan isn't listening in on this, cuz that'd just be awkward." Travis muttered under his breath, but in the silence, everyone heard him.

"Way to break the moment of silence, dweeb." Thalia rolled her eyes, speaking softly in the quiet.

"Consider it already broken," Nico announced at normal volume, making a few jump. "I should probably mention the hellhounds trying to sniff their way around the perimeter."


	6. Gravity is not a suggestion

**Hello internet. **

**So, I've been on break here and writing another fic, called Paul, and then other… and then another, and I kinda got distracts… but ****An Awesome Unicorn**** so kindly reminded me why I started this story in the first place, and I got inspired. **

**Plus, ****ninja4evs ****left a review that made me laugh out loud for like, a full minute, and I felt obligated **

**Enjoy 3**

_*Previously*_

"_I hope the current Pan isn't listening in on this, cuz that'd just be awkward." Travis muttered under his breath, but in the silence, everyone heard him._

"_Way to break the moment of silence, dweeb." Thalia rolled her eyes, speaking softly in the quiet. _

"_Consider it already broken," Nico announced at normal volume, making a few jump. "I should probably mention the hellhounds trying to sniff their way around the perimeter."_

"Wow, that was fast." Frank said. "Weren't we just talking about this?"

"Yes, but that's only natural. We seem to have a penchant for jinxing things." Annabeth sighed heavily, jumping off the marble table and her bronze knife appearing in her hand. She noted it with only mild surprise. "It seems our weapons appear only when we need them. That's rather handy…"

"If only it could work like that all the time." Piper huffed. Jason, Nico, Thalia, and Percy beamed, patting their own magically-returning weapons of choice proudly.

Their casual banter was cut off when several people near the entrance screamed.

"Crap! No mist means they can all see the monsters!" Rachel realized.

"Rachel, Grover, make sure they don't freak and cause a panic," Percy commanded slipping Riptide out of his pocket and following on the heels of Thalia and Nico as they charged the entrance. The crowd was pressing farther into the temple in fear of the monsters outside, but it still managed to part for the demigods running against the flow.

"Everyone stay inside the building and you'll be fine!" Rachel yelled to the people rushing past her.

Grover slipped out his reed pipes and began playing softly, but it was enough to calm the crowd down from their panic so no one would get hurt. They still shifted nervously; glancing at the doorways like a monster would jump out of one and eat them at any minute.

The eleven demigods rushed out of the temple, but skidded to a halt when Nico stopped a foot from his shadowy curtain blocking the entrance, holding out is hand to signal their stop.

"They can't get in the curtain while I'm in the building, we may need to plan this a bit. There are seven: one directly out front, one on the roof, one around to the left, one down the road a bit, and three circling out back as we speak." He said quickly, pausing for a split second as he frowned in concentration. "I sense more approaching through the shadow world, but not how many, where, when, or _if_ they'll get here. I think if we take care of these quickly, they'll move off rather than attacking today."

Annabeth considered that for a brief moment. "Split up," She decided and they all nodded.

"Piper and I will take the one on the roof," Jason said, nodding to his girlfriend, who nodded determinedly back.

"I will take the one out front," Frank said.

"I'll help." Hazel agreed stepping beside him.

"We call the one on the road!" The Stolls chorused, waving their hands in the air.

"There're no trees around left, I'll head that way." Leo volunteered. "Better way not to start a forest fire…"

"Wow, forethought." Piper teased under her breath and Leo rolled his eyes.

"We'll head around back," Annabeth looked to Percy and Thalia who nodded, putting their weapons up.

"I'll stay here; I'm not sure if the fact the mortals can see the monsters means they can attack them too… As long as I'm in the building, I'll keep them out, and can also concentrate on if any more will show up." Nico said.

"Good thinking," Annabeth nodded.

"Let's go!" Percy dismissed the quick meeting and they took off towards the stairs.

0000000000000

**Jason and Piper **

The eleven demigods launched themselves down the front steps, running through the shadow curtain and wincing as the eerie feeling of walking through a cold shower made their spines shiver.

"There," Jason glanced where Piper pointed up, and caught the shape of a massive shadow darting across the rooftop behind them as they turned to look up at it.

He grabbed Piper around the waist and willed the winds to wrap around them, shooting them up into the sky. Piper just leaned back into him, feeling her stomach drop away with the ground, but concentrated on taking in the scene on the roof.

A hellhound the size of a small Rhino was clawing uselessly at the stone rooftop, leaving deep scars in the marble. She randomly thought of what Annabeth would say if she saw that.

It spotted them and let out a roar, launching itself into the air as they approached it. Jason gasped and swerved out of the way, narrowly ducking its claws as it tried in vain to twist in the air and redirect it's trajectory backwards. It hit near the edge of the roof, nearly slipping off and to the ground, but it dug its nails into the marble and came to a screeching halt with its hind legs hanging off the side. The next instant it had pulled itself up and was running at where they had landed on the opposite side of the roof.

Piper felt her dagger appear in her hand and let out a sigh of relief as it's familiar weight gave her strength. The winds began picking up, blowing like a wind tunnel against the hellhound, slowing it down but seeming to avoid the two demigods.

The massive dog struggled to fight against the current, eventually being forced to dig it's claws deep into the marble to keep from being flung away, and the wind howled harder and harder still.

"Piper-!" She turned and saw Jason struggling to keep up the wind, his forehead covered in sweat but his clear blue eyes determinedly pushing the wind harder and harder until they started to feel their own shoes slip against the stone as the air currents became wild enough to start slipping from his control and try to drag them up in the raging torrent.

It gave her an idea.

A stupid idea, but hey, when you're a demigod, sometimes the best plans are the stupid ones. Just ask Percy.

She jumped.

She would have laughed at the comically shocked expression Jason gave her, if her laugh hadn't been wrenched from her throat as she was immediately engulfed in the raging air current and launch unceremoniously at the hellhound. It was much harder to keep herself righted than she'd originally thought, gravity seeming to have no relevance in the midst of the free-flying wind, but luckily she managed to twist herself around just in time to hold her dagger out first as she collided violently with the hellhound.

She swore she sprained her wrist, perhaps badly bruised her shoulder and knocked her head against the dog's much-harder skull hard enough to see little black spots, but it did the job as she felt her knife sink deep into the hound's brain and suddenly the resistance she'd been met with—and probably crushed against had it remained solid after being impaled—turn into a puff of golden smoke, whipped along around her in golden tendrils in the wind stream.

Oh, now it was a stupid plan.

Perhaps she should have told Jason her plan, because he didn't quite cut the air off fast enough, and she flew through the air in the middle of a fluttering golden cloud—uh _ew_—clear to the other side of the roof and over the edge. Actually, at least a hundred yards past the edge, over the trees.

Then the wind dissipated, the golden flecks faded, and gravity took hold.

0000000000000

**Perhaps, if I make these little battles shorter, I can get through them easier…**

**I will try, I might even get the next one done before tomorrow **


	7. Elephants can't jump

**Hello internet, **

**Remember when I said I might have the next one done by tomorrow?**

**Yeah, I lied. **

**Enjoy!**

**0000000000000**

**Frank and Hazel**

No sooner had he reached the bottom of the steps did Frank realize that his girlfriend was much smarter than him. Or a better solider, he wasn't arguing which.

If it were not for the fact he'd already been thinking about turning into an elephant, he would have been crushed as the two ton hellhound landed directly on top of him. As he stood—in elephant form instead of the human that had disappeared beneath the massive mound of black fur—tossing the dog roughly off of him, he caught sight of Hazel behind him, still half way up the steps and throwing what looked like fist-size diamonds and emeralds at the dog. She should've been a pitcher, he thought in pride, watching as one connected directly with the hound's eye and made him flinch back a few skittering steps from the suddenly not-so-easy-treats the dog obviously expected upon first glance.

"Frank! Duck and roll!" She shouted, and he immediately fell into the pattern of the training exercises that had been drilled into him since he arrived at Camp Jupiter.

He couldn't jump—recently discovering that elephants were in fact the only mammal that _couldn't_ jump, much to his shock—but he rolled to the size, and let me tell you, a three ton elephant rolling was quite the sight. Mid-roll, he was an eagle that never met contact with the ground, swooping back up the steps. He felt Hazel land lightly on his back as he arched back up into the air.

_We're a good team,_ he thought happily as he came to the top of the arch and fell backwards, dive-bombing the earth. He felt Hazel slip away into the wind, and he morphed back to a human, landing on the ground the same moment Hazel landed on the hellhound's back, sword plunged deep into the base of its skull.

She hit the ground lightly as the dog beneath her turned to dust, coughing a little at the golden haze.

"That was way too easy," He frowned, waving the smoke away from his face as he approached her casually.

She grinned, "Or we're just a good team." She smiled warmly at him, and he felt himself blush.

"Frank! Incoming!" They heard Nico yell behind him, and whipped around just in time to be very confused.

**Eh, short, but whatever. **


	8. Spicy

"Nice doggy… pleeeeease don't eat me…" Leo smiled nervously as he tried to sneak up on the hellhound sniffing at the base of the shadow curtain on the side of the massive marble structure.

The hellhound didn't seem to notice him, continuing to scratch at the curtain, which looked pretty solid as its claws scraped harshly against the shadows, like nails on a chalkboard. It growled and did a bark/roar/screech thing in frustration at its lunch trapped inside.

"OI…! GIT-!"

Leo didn't see him, but he heard Nico yell at the dog, and watched at a tendril of shadow shot out and whacked the hellhound on the nose like a dog owner would with a rolled up newspaper. The dog lurched backwards in shock, sliding down the steps and landing on its side on the ground.

Leo froze with wide eyes as the hellhound lifted its head- which was now three feet from his own.

The dog blinked in surprise.

"Uh… hey…" Leo said, trying really hard not to even breath, much less move and inch.

The dog stared at him, its red eyes nearly the size of Leo's head, but oddly cute and innocent when looking in shocked astonishment.

And then it started to growl.

"Yeah, thought as much." Leo sighed, jumping back slightly as the dog tried to lurch forward and swallow him whole- but he didn't want to get _too_ far away.

It scrambled to its feet, stomping after its new lunch with vicious growls and yips, and Leo scrambled back, much faster to keep out from under its cage-like claws as they tore up the grass into heaping mounds of black dirt.

"Just-a bit-farther-!" Leo yelped, and stumbled backwards over some stupid misplaced tree root (though he'd picked this side of the building to AVOID the stupid trees, he was really good at falling over flat surfaces anyway) and landed sharply on his back, all his breath being expelled from his chest at once.

The dog let out a victorious bark and bit down at Leo, jaws swooping in on either side over where Leo lay, scooping up some dirt on the way (which Leo highly doubted would taste good). An instant later, Leo would have been crushed and swallowed whole.

So he set himself on fire.

Not that he would know this, being fire-resistant and all, but he supposed it would be mildly alarming having the thing you just put in your mouth spontaneously combust into a giant fireball.

Just a guess, but one's first reaction would probably be to spit it out.

The hellhound gave a strangled choking sound as its mouth and throat were burned away from the inside out, its lungs probably on fire as well, and Leo decided that he was being rather cruel. So he picked up the heat levels as high as he could go, and the hellhound didn't suffer anymore as it seemed to disintegrate: first in the heat, then into the golden dust meaning it was truly dead.

He sat up jerkily, shaking his hair to extinguish the flames and shake out the ash and golden dust littering his curly hair.

"Ugh," He spat as he got a strange mix of soot and monster dust in his mouth.

"AHHHHH!"

"What?" He said stupidly, looking up and instantly getting crushed by Jason falling down on top of him.

"OOF!" They both groaned and Leo started coughing in pain.

"_Dude!_ You can _FLY!_ WHAT'S with the gravity!" Leo complained.

"Piper!" Jason gasped leaping up off his friend in a panic, glancing about in terror.

"No, dude, I'm Leo." Leo said dryly, sitting up again and clutching his stomach with a wince. "I'm fairly certain you broke a rib or something…" He grumbled.

"No! I lost control of the winds! Piper fell off the other side!" Jason gasped, eyes blown wide in fear.

"_What?"_Leo blinked in shock as well. Jason could fly and had Leo to land on, Piper… did not.

"Come on-!" Jason snapped, gripping Leo by the arm and hauling him to his feet. Leo stumbled a bit, but found his feet and ran beside him as they raced around the building to find their friend.


	9. Insult like Percy

Travis grinned at his brother, who caught on immediately.

"Oh dear brother of mine, if you'd to the honors…" Travis bowed mockingly to Connor, who rolled his eyes. The hellhound down the road jumped and leapt around to face the two demigods behind it.

"No, no, after _you…"_ Connor insisted.

"Shut up, I'm letting you go first," Travis said with a grin, pointing his sword at the hellhound, who seemed confused at why they weren't cowering in fear at it, or even paying it much attention.

"And _I'm_ letting _you_ go first!' Connor countered with an eye roll.

"Well, I'm older therefore you have to do as I say." Travis huffed.

"As if, older maybe, but I'm so obviously smarter than you so _you_ should go first."

"How are you _smarter_ than me?! We both have D averages!"

"Street smart then."

"That is a cop-out answer!"

"Fine then, I'm obviously the better looking brother, therefore it'd be shame if _I _was the one to be eaten, so _you_ go first!"

"Better looking my aunt! Keep dreaming shrimp!"

"I'm _an inch_ shorter than you, that's hardly a good comeback!"

"Now you're insulting my insults? How rude!"

"Ha! You insult like Percy!"

Travis gasped dramatically. "_You-take-that-BACK! _That is an INSULT –no- TRAVESTY to the trickster's way!"

Connor rolled his eyes. "Dramatic much?"

"Fine then, _you_ insult like Percy!"

"GODS DAMN YOU TAKE THAT BACK!"

"See?"

"Huh, point taken."

"Hey, Connor?"

"Yeah?"

"There's still that whole monster thing."

"Right you are, dear brother." Connor agreed, and as one they turned and plunged their swords in to the dog's head. The poor hound had been watching the conflict like a tennis match, subconsciously leaning forward to watch until it got too close.

The brothers coughed through the cloud of golden mist.

"Hey, that was pretty easy." Connor noted.

"Hellhounds are suckers for some good bickering." Travis snickered. They turned to look back up the hill at the Parthenon. "We should really get back, see if anyone else needs help."

"M'kay." Connor agreed and they set off at a jog. "… hey, Travis?"

"Yeah?" The older brother glanced over.

"… can we leave the 'insult like Percy' jokes out for a bit? They actually kinda hurt."

Travis sighed heavily. "I'd hoped you say that," He said in relief. "Truce?"

Connor beamed. "Truce."


	10. Awkward

**Hello internet. **

**Yes, writer's block's a bitch. **

**You can thank S.E. Hinton for giving me my spark back. But, that's a story for another time. **

**Enjoy. **

Annabeth reached out as she and Percy ran side by side.

"Lift?" she breathed and he nodded, gripping her arm and spinning. She tensed as her feet left the ground and she spun too, suddenly flying through the air and hitting a tree trunk, feet first. She dropped then to land evenly on a hellhound's back and slash her knife across the dog's back, slitting its spinal cord. It collapsed as it lost power of its body, landing onto Riptide as Percy came up beneath it, and promptly vanished under her.

They glanced to their left at the next hound, who glared back at them, only to see a silver arrow sink deep into its blood red iris and disintegrate into golden smoke.

Thalia came to a halt beside them, her great silver bow raised in defense in her arms.

"I thought Nico said there were three?" She demanded, slightly breathless from their short sprint over here, not lowering her bow as her eyes darted around the landscape for the missing monster.

"I only saw two; the other must've run away or…" Percy shrugged.

Annabeth frowned. "Hellhounds don't just _run away_, they're not that intelligent. Their self-preservation isn't as strong as their blood thirst." She fretted, also scanning around for the hiding monster. She was banking on hellhounds not being smart enough to retreat also meaning they weren't smart enough to take advantage of the element of surprise and hide.

"Piper!" They heard Jason yell frantically from a ways away.

"We can't focus on it now- we'll just check with Nico for what we missed." Percy dismissed as they sprinted off again to find what was wrong.

They rounded the corner of the building to see Leo and Jason running the opposite direction, Jason practically dragging a stumbling Leo. They followed and got back to the front steps where a bewildered Hazel was gazing off to the forest, a panicked Jason begging her for something.

"Did you see her-!?"

"No, I wasn't paying attention, but Frank flew off in that direction the second our hound was down. What happened?" She worried, looking concerned but still really confused.

"I lost control of the winds and knocked her off the roof," Jason gasped, panic and all-consuming guilt written all over his face as he made to turn and sprint into the forest where Piper had gone.

"Wait-!" Annabeth grabbed his arm and held him in place as a pool of shadows opened at the base of the steps and they all slipped into defensive positions as a hellhound ripped its way out of the shadows and landed before them.

Half of them made to kill it before Percy recognized that this particular hellhound was wearing a _collar._

"Mrs. O'Leary?" He balked and everyone else froze in shock.

"Conveniently placed Hellhound, I'd say." Piper's voice came and they blinked yet again in shock as she leaned around the massive boulder-sized head of what was definitely Mrs. O'Leary now that they got a better look at her. The massive dog just barked happily, shaking the ground with the force of it, and covered Percy with a great big, and very _wet,_ hello kiss.

"Piper!" Jason gasped in relief, lurching forward and meeting her as she slide off the dog's back -and was enveloped in his hug. "I'm _so sorry, I-!"_

"Nonsense, I was the one who decided to jump when you obviously weren't in control." She brushed off, looking very windswept but still as beautiful as ever and not harmed visibly. "It was stupid, to say the least." She blushed in embarrassment while Jason just hugged her again and Leo gripped her free hand in comfort, relief written on his face as well.

"It was my fault for being out of control in the first place." He muttered, but only Piper heard him and she hugged him back in signal that all was forgiven.

"Well, if anything, one good thing _did_ come of it…" She allowed with a grin starting to grow of her lips.

"Please, we're not talking about it." Frank's voice came and they noticed he was also on Mrs. O'Leary's back. He slid down and was greeted with a curious looking Hazel.

"What happened?" She asked, smirking as Piper fought back her laughter at Frank's mortified expression.

"I tried to _catch_ her is what happened!" He huffed.

"Yes, and Mrs. O'Leary did too." Piper giggled.

"What happened?" Percy repeated.

"Mrs. O'Leary won." Piper burst into a laughing fit while Frank turned bright red.

"Well-! She's a giant dog and I was a bird so…"

"He got stepped on." Piper said in mocking sympathy. Everyone bit their lips to keep from laughing while Frank simply sniffed and tried very hard to ignore all their sympathetic, but obviously amused looks.

"Are you ok?" Hazel asked, the only concerned even thought she was evidently fighting back her own laughter.

Frank sighed and nodded, accepting her hand in his while they others looked back at Mrs. O'Leary.

"How'd you even get here girl?" Percy wondered aloud to his dog as he scratched the back of one of her giant elephant-like ears. Her tail started wagging, enough to generate quite a breeze and rustle the trees behind them.

"Shadows are omnipresent." Nico's voice came, and they saw him standing at the top of the stairs, on the outside of the shadow curtain as it quickly dissipated into nothingness now that he was outside the building, like ice in hot sunlight, letting them all know the danger had passed. "Technically speaking, I could shadow travel back to the present, except I wouldn't have half the power or strength to even get to the next century, much less a couple millennia forward." He explained, looking a bit winded from keeping the shadow curtain up.

"That's probably how the gods got us here in the first place… only fueled by their own powers." Annabeth reasoned, looking interested.

"Which means Hades would have had to have played a bigger part than Apollo let on." Thalia noted.

"That, _and_ that Mrs. O'Leary can travel to wherever she wants to, and since we're here…"

"She popped up here." Hazel finished for Nico, who nodded. "But that doesn't explain why all monsters don't do that…" She wondered.

"No reason I guess." Nico shrugged. "Demigods in one year are the same in any other year. I doubt they care what generation of demigods they attack so long as they attack them."

"Fair enough." Annabeth noted, turning back to the building. "We should go back in…" She prompted, but they others didn't look too eager.

"Are we going to have to explain this to them?" Travis complained.

"Boooooring." Connor muttered.

"Dealing with freaked out civilians, not that's _my_ definition of fun." Thalia sighed sarcastically.

"Now, I know it's not the greatest thing, but we can't just reveal we're demigods, run off and fight, and then just _abandon_ them to freak out by themselves!" Annabeth scolded them as she got several exasperated looks. "We need to go back and just calmly explain that-"

"All hail the children of gods!" A voice echoed out from the Parthenon, and the demigods glanced up in shock as the crowd of mortals were gazing in awe at them.

"Pardon?" Leo squeaked in shock.

"They're not talking about us, right?" Connor said in doubt.

"Well, not _you, _but I can see why they'd like _me."_ Travis shot back.

"_Shut up!"_ Thalia hissed at them.

"Can that guy make up his mind already?" Percy blurted out, seeing Ireneus was the man who'd spoken.

"Watch it, next minute he'll be trying to kill us again." Thalia smirked and Percy nodded in agreement while Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"Uh, guys!?" Rachel's slightly panicked voice came and they snapped around to see her being supported by two guys, holding her on their shoulders.

"I think they like us." Grover said uncertainly, being held up by two other guys and walked down the steps as if in a parade as the crowd of mortals cheered.

"Did you see those monsters-!?"

"….biggest mutt I've ever-!?"

"…_fire, _as in without a match or-!"

"… and the winds! The trees were going wild!"

"Just beautiful! Simply wild…!"

"An _eagle! _I swear! And some strange creature, _massive _though…"

The excited chatter and ramblings going on around them blurred together, but one things was certain: they were definitely cheering for the demigods. They swooped down in a mass of people, lifting the kids onto their shoulders and celebrating.

"Uh, no thanks…" Frank tried to awkwardly step away from the guys who tried to lift him up, who were both shorter than him. But, somehow, they managed to get him anyway.

"I always thought this'd be cool, but it's kind of weird…" Leo called to the Stolls, who completely ignored him, hamming up their praise and bowing dramatically to the crowd around them.

"Touch me- and you lose that hand!" Thalia growled viciously as two men tried to lift her onto their shoulders, and they quickly backed away.

"Thalia!" Rachel called, also not too fond of the touching, and the Lieutenant went to her rescue and pulled her away from the crowd as well.

"This is strange…" Grover shifted uncomfortably as a set of younger girls were asking questions about his hooves at rapid pace while he tried to squirm out of their grips.

Percy and Jason, who already knew how awkward being lifted up was after being raised onto shields, thus ending them up as Praetors, deftly moved out of the way of the crowd, but hovered close to Piper and Annabeth making sure those who lifted their girlfriends up didn't drop them… or that they weren't _too_ admiring Greek guys…

Nico had vanished altogether, but no one blamed him at this moment. It was a touching, but very strange situation going on all over.

"Tonight, we will have a great feast!" Elpis cried, standing at the top of the stairs, and the mortal crowd cheered. "We welcome the thirteen children of the gods who've graced us with the presence, and honor them tonight with all the greatest food we can find! Spread the word, and tonight- we celebrate!" He cried with a big, happy grin, and everyone went wild.

"You know, awkward as it is, I could get used to this." Annabeth noted with a smirk as Percy pulled her out of the crowd after they let her go.

"I don't know, the awkward part is _really, really_ awkward." Percy mumbled, still blushing as people tried to wave and ogle at them.

"Yeah, well, you're the only one with a modest bone in your body." Thalia snorted, coming up behind them with Rachel protectively under her arm and a sneer already on her lips to ward off the men obviously infatuated with them already.

"I could get used to it if they realized I _wasn't interested!"_ Rachel said, yelling the last part at two guys as they passed too close to them, the obvious lust on their faces. "MAIDEN! Say it with me: MAI- DEN! NO GUYS!" She hollered, but the only thing that truly scared them off was Thalia threateningly glaring at them behind the shorter red head.

"Well, you've got your work cut out for you." Annabeth sighed while Thalia and Rachel shifted defensively at every person coming closer.

"We'll lay down some rules at the feat tonight." Percy comforted them.

"Wait, we're actually going to that?" Hazel said, popping up behind his shoulder, a nervous Frank in tow. Now that they were grouped together in more than a pair, they were gathering more and more attention and people clamoring closer.

"Yes, the appreciation is nice, the attention is not." Frank muttered darkly, glancing about at all the eyes on them and the crowd steadily getting closer.

"Hold on," Nico, suddenly in the middle of their group after appearing out of nowhere, grabbed the front of Percy shirt and hooked his arm into Hazel's, and everyone else instinctively grabbed onto one of them. Darkness swallowed them, and they suddenly stood back in the Parthenon, the rest of the demigods and Grover already there after Nico's impromptu rescue. Everyone looked relieved.

"Anyone else feeling weirded out?" Leo said, raising his hand, and they rolled their eyes at him while the Stolls raised their hands too. They didn't need to raise their hands to all know they agreed with him.

"The question is, how is this supposed to be relaxing?" Jason sighed.

"Perhaps if we stick together… in little groups at least and try to avoid the, uh, _scenes_ we've caused today." Annabeth reasoned. "I mean, we had a decent time today before everyone realized who we were… and now we don't have to worry about keeping it all under wraps."

"Yeah, word will spread to expect weird things, but no one but the mortals outside right now will recognize us." Piper realized.

"Exactly: we just do our thing and relax for a bit, ok?" Annabeth said, looking around for conformation, and everyone shrugged, having no conflict with it.

"There you are!" Ireneus cried from the main entrance once he spotted them, causing the demigods to whip around in surprise, all tensing in response to it.

"Seriously, this guy bugs me." Travis huffed under his breath.

"Ditto." Pretty much everyone else chorused.


	11. We need to talk

**Hello Internet. **

**We need to talk. **

**Seriously people, I DO have life and that life currently consists of getting into college, which for those who aren't there yet or aren't going to be there, believe me when I say it SUCKS. **

**Not the college part, the GETTING INTO THE FREAKIN COLLEGE that is rather unpleasant. **

**I've had writers block for the past two months, and I blame all these stupid essays I'm writing. Who cares about nonfiction writing anyway? Waste of my time really. **

**Anyway. **

**I am indeed that troll behind the computer that whines when my favorite authors don't update regularly, and I feel like a bloody hypocrite for going so long without writing and leaving so many stories undone (TAKE A BREATH, I'M NOT ABANDONING THEM) and I sincerely appreciate those of you lovely internet people who read my stories that you are in fact better than me and **_**don't**_** whine. As aforementioned, you are all lovely people. **

**That said, I'm a jerk for not updating. I apologize whether you believe me or not. **

**For Back in Greece, I would like to do a serious of mini-stories of one or two demigods going out in Ancient Greece and generally causing panic, confusion, people to fall at their feet in worship, mess with the current gods, trouble, fun, **_**fill in your idea here, **_**and so on and so forth. **

**But I am not motivated. In fact, I'm rather lazy as you could probably tell since I spend my free time writing fanfiction and don't even post a good three fourths of it—simply let it sit on my desktop forever and ever and ever… (mostly because they're not complete stories or only bits and pieces of the middle and ends of future stories I can never seem to get around to writing beginnings for…)**

**So here's my proposition:**

**Review your idea with what story, what characters, and what trouble/fun you want them to get into. All I need is that, I **_**swear**_**, and I'll get right on working up that chapter. **

**Seriously, for a creative person, I'm not all that creative. **

**I also believe I mentioned I'm lazy. **

**Very, very lazy. **

**I NEED the prompt. Please, I beg of you. **

**Yes, you, the person reading this right now. **

**Yes, I know you're peeved this isn't a real chapter, but post your idea and soon there WILL be a chapter so…**

*****_**hint*hint***_

**Oh well, thank you for listening, those of you who do, and for those of you who saw this was an author's note and immediately clicked away, I hope you are eaten by rabid mice. **

**Sincerely, **

**Weezila. **


	12. Artemis Fanclub

After a brief conversation with Elpis, the temple keeper pointed Thalia towards a couple of young women who were frequent visitor's to Lady Artemis' temple and her statue at the Pantheon, and the Huntress wasted no time in having another brief conversation with them.

Within five minutes, four women were standing at different entrances of the massive temple and pointing out at the open forest and roads, screaming about hellhounds and giant snakes.

Elpis only smiled in amusement and lead the demigods away, slipping past the suddenly very distracted crowd and down a back road, away from the main town.

"Thank the gods that's over." Piper muttered, glancing back at the temple as the noise of the crowd disappeared into the trees.

"You're welcome, I _am_ a genius." Thalia nodded happily, ignoring the eye rolls she got.

"More like Artemis has some good followers." Annabeth snarked at her friend with a smirk.

Elpis smiled, seeming to find the teens fascinating and funny all at once. "There is an inn back here," He told them, "About a mile up this road. It is run by several lovely young ladies who are all very devoted to Lady Artemis and her Hunters, and very few chose to stay there because of the rather reserved and humble nature of it. Most choose not to journey out here so far, opting to stay in the inns in the city, but you've asked for some peace and I believe you can find it here."

"Well, Annabeth _did_ just say Artemis had the best followers." Thalia said matter-of-factly, and no one commented for fear of being electrocuted.

Annabeth was the only one brave enough to stick her tongue out, which Thalia promptly returned. "That wasn't exactly what I meant," The daughter of Athena sighed, but Thalia just shrugged like it made no difference to her.

"Hear that Stolls? _Humble_ and _reserved_…! Meaning, save your pranks for town. I'm sure everyone in Athens would be thrilled to be pranked by you, so leave this place alone, ok?" Percy told the brothers firmly, who looked dejected for all of three seconds before realizing they had an entire city practically _begging_ to be pranked… literally.

"_Humble_ and _reserved…_ You'll fit right in, right Kelp Head?" Thalia taunted her cousin, who blushed slightly before pointedly pretending not to hear her.

They joked around as they walked, and soon enough the inn came into view. It was a low system of buildings, built into a steeper portion of the mountainside, white washed until it was gleaming blindingly in the afternoon sunlight and small chimneys smoking with the smells of fire and fresh bread. There was little sound but the birds and the rustling of the trees and ivy leaves as it grew wild over the stark white walls, and little activity but the lazily curling smoke and gentle fluttering of sky blue and silver curtains hanging in the open window blocks of each little hut and long low building.

"Woah," Frank breathed.

"It's beautiful," Rachel sighed.

"Not what I was expecting when I thought of relaxing, but maybe I should've been." Jason noted calmly.

"Do you like it then?" Elpis said happily.

"Like it? I couldn't imagine anything more perfect," Piper said earnestly, and he flushed in happiness.

Travis sighed dramatically. "It may be blasphemy to say this, but I don't think we _could_ prank this place. It's so…"

"_Serene."_ Connor supplied for his brother, watching the mini-village bask peacefully under the lazy golden afternoon light.

"Glad to hear it." Hazel nodded.

"Come! You must meet the sisters! They will be overjoyed to see you, and I'm sure they will make you a fine dinner in celebration. Come!" Elpis lead them to one of the houses and knocked gently on the door.

After a moment or two and the sound of pattering footsteps walking quickly to the door, a young woman maybe only seventeen or eighteen opened the door. She had chocolate brown hair braided down her back and wore a simply sleeveless white summer dress, not unlike Elpis' outfit save in white and accented by two silver bracelets on her wrists. She had kind, mild green-gray eyes, that were really brought out by the drops of silver paint on her cheeks, just below her eyes.

"Elpis!" She said in pleasant surprise. "It's been too long since you've visited! And you have you brought? Travelers to Athens?" She asked curiously, scanning the teens behind him.

"Adorian, what a sight you are, as beautiful as ever!" Elpis bowed slightly to her. "And I'm happy to say this is more than just a visit—these are not just travelers, but true children of Athens!" He said excitedly, gesturing to the demigods and motioning them to come closer as he beckoned the girl to come out of the doorway to meet them. "I believe you will be most intrigued to meet this brave young woman…" Elpis nodded to Thalia, who stepped forward eagerly upon seeing the obvious signs this girl was an admirer of Artemis.

"Thalia Grace," She greeted confidently with a little bow too, copying Elpis. The girl nodded politely back.

"Thalia, this is Adorian, she and her sisters and aunts keep this Inn for the name of Artemis. They are even skilled hunters by trade." Elpis introduced.

"Really?" Thalia noted, looking fascinated.

Adorian blushed. "Oh, he boasts." She dismissed it. "We hunt in the name of Artemis, to sustain ourselves and our guests, and keep the name of maidens in her honor, but we are no more skilled hunters than we need to be for sustenance. And please, most call me Ada." She bowed her head.

Thalia grinned.

"It's great to meet you Ada, I'd _love_ to hear more about this lifestyle thing you've got going on… My Lady is undoubtedly pleased by your work here, I know I personally am over the mood about it…"

"Your Lady?" Ada asked with a politely quizzical look and a slight tilt of her head.

"She is a demigod, Adorian," Elpis said with wide, meaningful eyes.

"And the Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis." Thalia nodded with a wicked grin.

Ada blinked.

Then fainted.


End file.
